


summertime sadness

by sagexbrush



Series: how you get the girl [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, it's six in the morning sorry no tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 08:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4822880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagexbrush/pseuds/sagexbrush
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s late. </p><p>	But every Sheriff wakes up at the sound of his phone ringing. </p><p>	“Lydia?” </p><p>	She only has to say two words. </p><p>	“It’s Stiles.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	summertime sadness

**Author's Note:**

> so i deleted this and then annika and other people convinced me to repost it so here we are.

**( two hours after)**

 

Her hands are covered in imaginary blood.

                  It’s his blood, the blood that seeps under her fingernails, the blood they’ve told her he’s lost too much of, the blood feels like it’s filling her lungs and making it hard to breathe.

                  Of course, since it’s imaginary it’s not really there, but she can almost feel it sliding across her skin in thick red waves.

                  Her phone sits in her lap, it’s blank black screen staring up at her with accusing eyes. _Why weren’t you with him?_ It seems to be screaming. _Why weren’t you there?_

  


**(ten days before)**

 

                  She wakes up curled into his side. Her hair splayed in matted curls across his chest, her legs tangled with his, one arm thrown haphazardly across his chest.

                  They’ve managed to sleep in today, the sun filling the room is warm and buttery, the dust motes slowly dancing in circles above their heads and Stiles? Well Stiles is currently making a sound reminiscing a dying frog, so loud and obtuse that she has to giggle. That boy could _snore_.

                  His arms are also currently thrown above his head, his hands lightly waving back and forth. He was (and always had been) the weirdest sleeper she had ever seen.

                  She slips away from him, stretching her arms and yawning.

                  “Don’t get up,” he mumbles, his fingers reaching for her. She lightly brushes them with the palm of her hand, before swinging up with a smile.

                  “Life awaits!” she taunts, swinging her hips with a knowing smile as she strides in the direction of the bathroom. There’s a second’s pause as his sleepy mind registers what she’s telling him, and then she hears a rather large thump that suggests he’s following her and probably fallen out of bed in doing so.

                  “Wait for me!”

                  A pause.

                  “ _Lydia_!”

  

**(four hours after)**

 

                  They tell her she needs to call his Father, and with that, she knows she’ll have to call Scott and Allison and probably Malia and Kira and Isaac and -

                  Maybe she should just post a notice on the news about it. Then she wouldn’t have to do the achingly right thing, lifting the phone up to her ear, pressing the button.

                  It’s late.

                  But every Sheriff wakes up at the sound of his phone ringing.

                  “Lydia?”

                  She only has to say two words.

                  “It’s Stiles.”

                 

 

**** **(nine days before)**

 

                  Winter has faded into a light and balmy summer (at least in the mountains, down in the valley it’s hot as hell) and Lydia absolutely loves their front porch.

                  Okay so at first she might not have known it existed a few months, but considering the amount of snow that had been piled on top of it when she arrived, it’s an okay thing to miss.

                  Now, with two recently purchased lawn chairs on it’s surface and a cute little glass table, it makes for the best spot for Stiles’ torture.

                  “Just tell me what you think already Lyds,” he begs her, his brown eyes growing wider and wider with each plea. She and Allison have talked about what _puppies_ their boyfriend’s both are, like _seriously_.

                  She eyes him over the top of the laptop, pursing her lips.

                  “I’m done when I’m done Stiles.”

                  “How long does it take you to read one chapter?” he groans, flopping dramatically into his arms.

                  “I’m being careful.”

                  “What does that mean?!”

                  “The more you talk, the longer it will take.”

                  Thankfully, that shuts him up.

                  Her eyes continue to scan over his words as he squirms. He’s always like this though. Ever since his first book in this epic ‘Werewolf Saga for the ages’ (as a recent review put it) he had been extremely nervous about his conducting of the next done, down to the point where every time he finished a chapter, he had her read it before he even reread it himself.

                  Her eyes finish scanning the paragraph about the Kanima (and he won’t tell her who it is the little bastard) and she glances up at him. As if her eyes have triggered something in him he leans forward, placing both hands on her knees and giving her a look that suggests her next comments will determine his fate.

                  “I think it’s good,” she decides, “Although you need to work on your grammar, and Scott sounds too heroic in that paragraph. He’s a teenage boy, not a freaking knight.”

                  Stiles nods, accepting the laptop for her and begins typing like a madman. Smiling to herself, she slumps back in her own chair, closing her eyes and letting the sunlight warm her skin.

                  She knew that he let her read his drafts because he thought she would give him an unbiased opinion, but she was perhaps the most biased out of them all.

                  She was his biggest fan. Not that she would ever tell him that, because hello egos, but she still loves him and loves his work and loves the little crinkle between his eyes that he gets when he’s concentrating.

                  (So she loves him basically.)

 

**(six hours after)**

 

They ask her if she’s going home and she says no.

                  Then they ask her if she wants a fresh pair of clothes and a shower.

                  (She accepts that.)

                  The water pours down over her head, in some room they’ve lead her to, and she tries desperately not to think about him.

                  Her hair clumps together with the wet weight, and her skin feels moist, her body shivering despite the warm water.

                  She’s always laughed when in TV shows people cried in the showers, but now she understands.

                  You cried in the shower because it was the only place you knew you were alone, and that no one could hear you.

                  So under the sound of the pounding water, she lets herself cry, hot warm tears that trickle down her face, wracking sobs that shake her whole frame.

                  She wants to be empty again, a feeling she hasn’t had since she and Stiles got together.

                  She doesn’t want to feel this pain.

 

**(eight days before)**

 

“No!” she sits up, wailing, “THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!”

                  Stiles cackles. “You bet it is, it’s happening right here and now. It’s going down!”

                  “NO!”

                  “YES!”

                  “SHUT UP!”

                  “NEVER!”

                  She watches the TV with anxious eyes, Stiles still laughing like a maniac beside her.

                  “You’re favorite is going home, and good riddance!”

                  “You’re mean,” she shoves him and he topples off the couch, and she’s not sorry at all when he lands with a rather nasty crunch.

                  “And he’s going home!”

                  “There’s still two votes left!”

                  “And Julie just said that it’s certain. HA HA.”

                  She glares down at him, and then her eyes dart back up to the screen. Damn Stiles for getting her into this kind of TV, because the last thing she needed was Big Brother in her life.

                  As in, the show where they basically locked people in a house for a summer and let them decide who went home each week.

                  Stiles is still laughing, so she throws a pillow down at him as her favorite accepts defeat and prepares to leave the house.

                  “You know you love me!” he calls, and she sticks her tongue out at him. “You do! You love me!”

                  “Maybe just a little.”

                  “Or a lot!” he crows.

                  (She throws another pillow at him.)

 

**(eight hours after after)**

 

                  They join her around dawn with equally tired eyes and messy hair.

                  They all hug her, and she admits that she almost breaks down when she buries her face in the Sheriff’s shoulder.

                  She feels guilty when all she can tell them is blurred facts.

                  “I’m sorry,” she whispers, “I should have been there.”

                  Allison shakes her head, but it’s the Sheriff who speaks up instead.

                  “It’s not your fault.”

                  (It is.)

 

**(seven days before)**

****

                  Stiles likes to make up songs in the grocery store.

                  It’s such a weird habit, one that automatically turned her off at first, but now she’s beating along a rhythm with him, not really caring about what the other shoppers think. Who cares, they’re just passing people in the store, not really important to them.

                  “Let’s get the but _ter_!” Stiles sings, his voice going embarrassingly high at the end, his hands rattling the entire cart.

“And don’t forget the milk!” she chants along with him, her voice much more in tune.

He grins at her as she skips over and picks out the various dairy products.

“I love you,” it’s the way he says it, she thinks, that makes it so special. It’s like nothing else matters but her, and it never has.

She tosses the butter at him.

“I love you too.”

 

**(one day after)**

 

                  She eventually falls asleep in the waiting chair.

                  She doesn’t know how she does it, and it’s a fairly dreamless sleep, her head propped on Allison’s shoulder and her hand in Scott’s.

                  When she wakes, it’s because Allison’s frantically shaking her awake.

                  “Wha?” she mumbles.

                  “They have news,” Allison says quickly, “They have news about Stiles.”

                  Lydia sits up straight at once, and her eyes fixate on the nurse who’s standing in front of them, looking weary but not sad exactly, which she decides to count as a good sign.

                  “What is it?” she asks quickly.

                  “The surgery was successful, but he’s in a coma.”

                  Her lips wobbles.

                  She’s confused.

                  Should she be happy or sad?

 

**(six days before)**

 

“It’s a whole new world,” she whispers in amazement as they crest the top of the hill, and Stiles grins down at her.

“I can show you the world, shining shimmering splendid - “

                  “Shut up!” she shrieks, bumping into him playfully, “I swear you ruin everything.”

“Disney music does not ruin things.”

“Does.”

“If I recall, a certain someone was just watching Ariel the other day and _crying_.”

                  She blushes. “It has an emotional tie.”

                  “A whole new world!” he sings loudly, “A new fantastic point of view!”

                  She rolls her eyes.

                  “I like Ariel because she has fabulous hair.”

                  “All Disney princesses have great hair.”

                  She continues the hike, pointedly ignoring Stiles continued renditions of a ‘Whole New World’, and instead examining the area around her.  

                  Through this hike they’ve literally entered a new canyon not accessible from the road, and the new mountains stretch above her, the blue sky yawning wide above them, the trees rustling, and a blue lake gleaming beautifully under it all.

                  She turns to look at Stiles, and then steps forward and kisses him, effectively stopping his horrible attempts at Jasmine’s part.

                  “What was that for?” he asks in surprise, and she can’t really voice what she’s feeling.

                  So she just kisses him again.

                  (He doesn’t seem to mind.)

 

**(one day after)**

 

                  They let them see him around noon.

                  He’s lying, a billion tubes running through his body, up his nose, machines beeping, in a bed with blue sheets and a white pillow. His arm and leg are bound tightly in a cast, and his skin looks as pale as milk, his hair almost black.

                  She feels like throwing up.

                  So she does.

                  She finds the nearest trash can and lets her innards spill away, like everything else that’s slipping away away away.

                  (Including Stiles.)

                  (But maybe he’s always been slipping away.)

 

**(five days before)**

 

It’s one day, when the sun’s going down and the bugs are starting to come out and it’s getting chilly and they’re sharing a blanket, the lawn chairs pushed as close together as they can go that they dance.

                  It’s totally out of the blue, but everything Stiles does is out of the blue _so_ -

                  He disentangles himself from their nest of blankets (nearly falling over as he does so) and stumbles to his feet before reaching down a hand for her to take.

                  “Dance with me.”

                  “What?”

                  “You heard me Martin. Dance with me.”

                  “Why?”

                  “Because our last dance I’d rather forget,” he says, “So let’s make this one count.” She rather thinks those words fit for their whole relationship.

                  So she stands up, and he places his hands on her waist and she leans into his shoulder, her lips brushing his neck as they slowly sway back and forth.

                  “You know,” she whispers, “You never told me while you really moved out here.”

                  “After Erica died,” he responds, “I realized that if there’s something you’ve always wanted to do, like travel around the world, you need to do it before it’s too late.”

                  Her nose ghosts over the crook of his neck. “Is your heart broken Stiles?”

                  He smiles. “Not anymore. Is yours?”

                  (It’s not.)

 

**(two days after)**

                  They force her to go home.

                  It’s in those no nonsense tones with those no nonsense faces and she knows she has to give in.

                  So Allison drives her home filling the conversation with meaningless reassurances that don’t mean anything because her friend is not, in fact, a doctor.

                  Allison hasn’t been to their house before, and she knows her friend is probably stunned by the beauty like Lydia was the first time she saw it.

                  To her now, for the first time, it feels distant. All of it is a distant beauty, without Stiles and his laughter and his promises that they were going to play soccer and board games and watch Chuck and -

                  She turns her face away from Allison so the other friend can’t hear her cry.

 

**(four days before)**

 

He kicks the soccer ball at her, and misses.

                  “STILES!”

                  She really should have thought more when she suggested they play soccer in their front lawn.

                  Well, they sort of didn’t have a front lawn.

                  Their front line was kind of the road.

                  Which was kinda slanted.

                  They both turn and watch in horror as the soccer ball bounces down the road at a faster and faster speed, and it only takes them two seconds before they’re both sprinting after it.

                  The soccer ball steadily gains speed, and it doesn’t take long before Lydia doesn’t know if she can stop running because hello running down an inclined slope kind of does that to you.

                  The stretch of road they live on is pretty quiet but if it hits a car or -

                  Or a very large tree.

                  The soccer ball whams into the tree with the force of a raging bull, before bouncing back and hitting Stiles smack in the chest, knocking him off his feet. Lydia lunges forward, throwing herself on top of the soccer ball before it can roll any farther.

                  “The soccer ball of death,” Stiles wheezes, and Lydia begins to laugh, and laugh and laugh and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever stop.

 

**(three days after)**

 

                  “In all the movies, they say people in comas can hear people who are awake,” Lydia says experimentally, “And maybe it will help you wake up or something but who knows?”

                  Silence.

                  “You know, I had to sneak out of the house this morning. I may have stolen Allison and Scott’s rental car, but they can get a ride out of the house from your Dad. Who, I might add, does not make as good pancakes as you.”

                  More silence.

                  “You may be wondering why I snuck out, well it’s because they keep staring at me like they’re expecting me to tell them everything and you know that’s never been one of my strong suits and Stiles - “

                  Even more silence.

                  “Stiles I just - you remember don’t you? Remember what I was like when I flew in? An Emotional wreck, torn apart by Jackson, broken in all the wrong places and I didn’t - I didn’t think I could ever be fixed. But you changed that with your mountains and your writing and your werewolves and banshees and - they don’t see that. They keep expecting me to revert back into my old ways and I can’t do that. Because of you. But I have to ask you one favor, okay?”

                  Nothing.

                  “Let me be that person for you okay? Let me help fix you because it looks like you’re broken in all the wrong places and I owe that to so you so - just please Stiles. Please let me help you.”

                  The room rings.

                  Nothing happens.

                  He’s still lying there, like always.

 

**(three days before)**

 

                  The suspicion creeps in like a disease, lingering in the back of her thoughts and clogging up her throat everytime she looks at him.

                  (She pretends it doesn’t exist.)

                  Instead she and Stiles remain blissfully, peacefully, the same. She likes being the same. She loves it actually.

                  Stiles has been her best friend for so long he was almost like an extension of herself, like a pair of wings she had just recently discovered and was now using to her full ability.

                  It was, she had discovered, as easy as falling asleep sometimes, and could be just as difficult. It was like he knew what she was going to say before she did, and she knew every single mole on his body and liked to map out constellations with her fingers on his skin.

                  Yet there was always this lingering feeling that somehow everything was going to change, that for whatever reason she didn’t deserve this. She doesn’t deserve to be his girlfriend, his best friend, his _anything_.

                  She thinks her suspicion will change everything.

                  She knows it will.

                  Which is why she ignores it.

                  (For now.)

 

**(four days after)**

 

                  “The pressure on his brain is decreasing,” the doctor says, pointing to a scan of his brain. Lydia clutches Allison’s head, “He may come out of the coma.”

                  May.

                  May.

                  _May_.

 

**(two days before)**

 

                  She kisses him harder than she ever has before, in their kitchen.

                  She doesn’t know what makes her do it, what makes her kiss him like she’s dying and he’s her only savior, but he responds quickly and eagerly, until they’re crashing towards their bedroom.

                  (She has only the briefest concern for the neighbors.)

 

**(five days after)**

 

Her fingers start to bleed as she chews at her fingernails.

                  She tells Allison.

                  Allison holds her while she cries.

                 

                 

 

**(the night before)**

 

                  She sneaks out of the house at three in the morning. She takes the Jeep without asking, thundering down the mountain, her headlights barely illuminating the road in front of her and oh god what if some freaking animal comes out and attacks her like that would be just her luck you watch.

                  She makes it down to the nearest drug store unscathed though, and quickly maneuvers the aisles, head down, hands in pockets. She probably looks like a shoplifter.

                  (She would be lying if she said she didn’t consider just stealing it anyways.)

                  She grabs her two items and brings them up to the register. The clerk gives her an amused look, and it really makes Lydia wonder how many customers she gets buying pregnancy tests at three in the freaking morning.

                  Well pregnancy tests and pads.

                  Two conflicting items, she knows.

                  (But if Stiles caught her, she had to have a viable excuse right?)

                  So she buys her items and slinks out to the car, driving just as fast back up the canyon as she had down. She feels the anxiety and nerves crawling under her skin like a million worms because what if it’s _positive_.

                  (Or what if it’s negative?)

                  She starts to tap out a beat on the steering wheel, deciding that she can probably get away with doing it before he wakes up.

                  There is a flaw in her plan.

                  Stiles is awake, and waiting for her on the couch, his arms crossed and his eyes hard and angry.

                  “Decided to come back?”

                  She frowns. “What does that mean?”

                  “You left, without telling me!” he says, and she can see a vein pulsing in his temple.

                  “I had to buy lady products,” she says, waving the package at him. (She keeps the other one hidden behind her back.)

                  “At four in the morning?”

                  “It was an emergency!”

                  “I’m sure it was.” his eyes aren’t softening.

                  “Stiles - what’s - what’s wrong?”

                  “You tell me Lydia,” he snaps, “Because I don’t even know anymore. I feel like we’re happy and then - “

                  “And then what?”

                  “You leave!” he yells, “You leave and I get replaced and now I feel like maybe this whole thing has been - “

                  “Has been a what?”

                  “A lie!”

                  She didn’t realize it would ever escalate to this. “I TOLD YOU WHY I LEFT!”

                  “And I don’t believe you!”

                  And there it is.

                  The truth.

                  He doesn’t believe her.

                  Probably never will.

                  So when he storms out the door, she lets him.

                  And when she gets the call that his jeep rolled off the canyon road, she doesn’t know what to do.

                  (It’s positive of course.)

 

**(six days after)**

 

                  “We weren’t going to breakup,” she tells him, “We weren’t Stiles. Everyone has fights. And this one- well it’s costing a lot and you better wake up I swear to god - “

                  Her voice cracks.

                  (He doesn’t wake up.)

 

**(nine days after)**

 

                  She’s okay.

                  She’s okay.

                  She’s -

                  She’s -

                  She’s not -

                  She doesn’t  -

                  She’s not okay.

 

**(ten days after)**

 

                  The doctors are hopeful.

                  She isn’t.

                  She’s Lydia.

                  She loses everything.

                  She sinks everyone.

 

**(twenty days after)**

 

                  She gets the call in the middle of the night.

                  “They say he’ll work up tomorrow,” she tells the Sheriff, Scott and Allison over the phone. They have jobs. They had to leave.

 

**(twenty one days after)**

 

                  He doesn’t wake up.

                  (She finds herself praying to god, something she hasn’t done since the ink dried on her parents divorce papers.)

**(twenty three days after)**

 

They call her.

                  He’s stirring.

                  “He’s waking up,” one nurse tells her.

                  She runs away.

                  She’s sure he doesn’t want to see her.

 

**(twenty four days after)**

 

                  He calls her.

                  His voice is slurred.

                  “Lyds. Come.”

                  (And she does.)

                  He’s sleeping.

                  Typical Stiles.

 

**(twenty five days later)**

 

                  He has a hard time talking, but when he wakes up, he tilts his head against her’s and wraps his good arm sluggishly around her and breathes into her hair as she cries.

                  “I missed you,” she sobs, sobs like she’s never going to stop. “God Stiles, don’t ever do that again.”

                  “Yes ma’am,” he mumbles, “Yesssss.”

                  (He falls back to sleep.)

                  (She doesn’t mind.)

 


End file.
